Draytek Vigor 2800G mini-review

[Taz]

For anyone thinking of upgrading their wireless network and are considering buying the new Draytek Vigor 2800G router then they may find the following mini-review useful.

I need to connect three devices together and to the Internet:

• My desktop PC
• My XBox games console
• My work laptop (Dell, Centrino-based Wifi 802.11b 11Mbps)

My very first wireless setup was entirely 802.11b (11Mbps) and consisted of the following wireless kit:

• Motherboard-based wireless adapter (802.11g, 54Mbps) to connect my desktop
• Netgear ME101 wireless bridge (802.11b, 11Mbps) to connect my XBox
• Draytek Vigor 2600We wireless ADSL router (802.11b, 11Mbps) to connect to the Internet

This setup worked flawlessly for many months, albeit at wireless speeds of 11Mbps. During the summer, I 'upgraded' my wireless network by installing a Belkin 125 High Speed Mode PCI card in my desktop and disabling the onboard WiFi. I also replaced the trusty Draytek router with a Belkin 125 High Speed Mode router. With no other wireless device switched on, my PC connected at 80Mbps to the router. As soon as any other WiFi device was switched on, the speed fell to around 36Mbps. The router also required constant rebooting as it could neither keep the ADSL line up nor keep the WiFi connections up. Worse still, the online gaming experience with XBox Live games was very poor.

After many months of frustration, I decided to replace all the wireless equipment again. I bought the following:

• Netgear WGE111 wireless bridge (802.11g, 54Mbps) to connect my XBox - cost around £63 inc. next day delivery from Broadbandbuyer)
• D-Link AirPlus DWL-G520 PCI Adapter (802.11G Super-G, 108Mbps) to connect my desktop - cost around £33.50 from DSL Warehouse
• Draytek Vigor 2800G router (802.11g, 108Mbps) to connect to the Internet - cost around £150 from DSL Warehouse
• Draytek Vigor 5dBi gain antenna (x2) - to boost the signal from the 2800G - cost around £23.50 from DSL Warehouse

The hub of this new network is the Draytek Vigor 2800G router. It's a very light but well-constructed unit with an on/off switch. As the unit has just been released, there is no newer firmware available from the Draytek site (http://www.draytek.co.uk/support/index.html). There is a beta firmware available (version 2.6.3) but the official release at the moment is 2.6.1.1 and this was already loaded on the router.

Setup was very, very simple. The D-Link AirPlus DWL-G520 PCI Adapter and the Draytek Vigor 2800G router are a match made in heaven. The router can be configured for various WiFi speed combinations. I chose 11b+11G+SuperG. The DWL-G520 PCI Adapter immediately connected to the router at 108Mbps! This is the first time I have ever seen a WiFi component connect at the maximum rated speed across several metres and walls.

The Web interface to the Draytek 2800G router is a step back from their older routers. This surprised me somewhat as the Web interface in my old 2600We router was rock solid and looked professional. The one in the 2800G looks very cheap and unprofessional. Nevertheless, it is very easy to use but some pages take a while to load.

Also surprising was that the default username and password are both null. Anyway, I set up the MAC address filtering and this worked a treat. I did notice that you could not label each MAC address like I could in the Belkin router - a minor issue but annoying in such a costly router. At each step I tested my desktop PC and the wireless bridge for my XBox would connect. The default gateway is 192.168.1.1 for the router.

After switching on MAC address filtering, I turned on the firewall in the router. There are an obscene number of firewall options (although most of them were also available in the much older 2600We router):

• Enable DoS Defense
• Enable SYN flood defense Threshold packets / sec
• Enable UDP flood defense Threshold packets / sec
• Enable ICMP flood defense Threshold packets / sec
• Enable Port Scan detection Threshold packets / sec
• Block IP options Block TCP flag scan
• Block Land Block Tear Drop
• Block Smurf Block Ping of Death
• Block trace route Block ICMP fragment
• Block SYN fragment Block UnknownProtocol
• Block Fraggle Attack

Ensuring that everything still worked with the maximum firewall options switched on, I then hid the SSID. Both the Netgear WGE111 wireless bridge and the D-Link AirPlus DWL-G520 PCI Adapter connected to the Draytek Vigor 2800G without any problems. I then enabled another security option: WPA/PSK. The router actually supports WPA2 but my Netgear WGE111 wireless bridge only supports WPA. Again, everything worked flawlessly and I actually had a connection speed of 36Mbps for the Netgear WGE111 wireless bridge (XBox connection) and 108Mbps for the D-Link AirPlus DWL-G520 PCI Adapter (desktop connection).

The optional 5dBi aerials for the router give me an 'Excellent' signal strength to my desktop and are well worth it.

All in all, this does appear to be a very high quality router (and should be at the price!). It seems to work very well in mixed WiFi environments (b, g, SuperG) as it can maintain high speeds to each connection rather than falling to the speed of the slowest device.

[peterb]

Thanks - looking at the 2800VG when it becomes available...

[bertie]

Nice review - i'm very tempted to opt for a Draytek here but the price puts me off each time.
Interesting your note about the web interface, that was something I've liked about Draytek and it seems silly if they've taken away the professional look.

[Taz]

I set off some huge downloads overnight and everything downloaded fine by this morning and the connection stayed up at 108Mbps. That is seriously impressive considering i've got another wireless bridge operating at standard 802.11g speeds at the same time.

So far i'm very impressed with it. Over the weekend i'm going to introduce my work laptop into the equation. This only runs at 802.11b speeds (11 Mbps) so it will be interesting to see if the router can maintain a speed of 108Mbps to my desktop whilst serving my laptop at 11Mbps. That for me would be the most difficult test for the router.

My current security settings are:

• Hide SSID
• MAC address filtering
• WPA/PSK

That's about as secure as I can get my connections whilst still having full speed connectivity.

I should also add that the 2800G supports ADSL2 and ADSL2+ to boot! Hence, it's fairly futureproof. It even has a USB printer port if you want to share your printer on the network. Draytek also (from my previous experiences with that company) produce fairly regular and bug-free firmware updates.

If you can stretch to £150 it's probably one of the best wireless ADSL routers on the market today.

[Gravity17]

Hi Taz,

Can you tell me if you still have this set-up?

I recently upgraded from a D-link MIMO router which all worked perfectly using WPA.

I now have the DrayTek 2800VG and have lots of problems connecting to to Xbox Live.

I have a D-Link DWL-G810 Ethernet Bridge and cannot connect to Xbox Live. I believe this is down to the security settings I have. It appears to work first time on WEP, but if I try any WPA it doesn't work (fails on finding an IP address I have turned off DHCP as I want to use Static IP addresses) - can you tell me what entry you are using for WPA as there are several in the list?

I'm using the latest firmware 2.8

Any helpgreatfully recieved!

Cheers!

[peterb]

To0 quote (someone!)

"Holy Thread Revival, Batman!"

[Taz]

Originally Posted by Gravity17

Hi Taz,

Can you tell me if you still have this set-up?

I recently upgraded from a D-link MIMO router which all worked perfectly using WPA.

I now have the DrayTek 2800VG and have lots of problems connecting to to Xbox Live.

I have a D-Link DWL-G810 Ethernet Bridge and cannot connect to Xbox Live. I believe this is down to the security settings I have. It appears to work first time on WEP, but if I try any WPA it doesn't work (fails on finding an IP address I have turned off DHCP as I want to use Static IP addresses) - can you tell me what entry you are using for WPA as there are several in the list?

I'm using the latest firmware 2.8

Any helpgreatfully recieved!

Cheers!

I've just 'upgraded' to a 2700G as the 2800G was having problems with MaxADSL on my very poor quality BT line. However, my Xbox live connection is still the same and that worked perfectly with the 2800G.

I am using WPA/PSK security for all my connected devices. For the Xbox I am using a Netgear WGE111 wireless bridge connected to my V2700G (and V2800G until fairly recently). I have given this a static address. I guess the setup of the D-Link device is very similar to the Netgears setup.

In the setup menus for the wireless bridge I have specified WPA-PSK security and entered my passphrase.

As I mentioned, this setup worked flawlessly for me on the 2800G and, now, on the 2700G. I have just checked the Draytek forums and there is a thread that you may be interested in (you'll need to register to see it):

http://www.forum.draytek.co.uk/viewt...light=xbox+wpa

The gist of it is that you have to force the 2800G to operate in WPA mode only (not WPA2). Whilst your wireless bridge may operate in WPA2 mode, the Xbox does not support WPA2. Hence, your bridge may negotiate WPA2 mode but your Xbox is going to get confused. If you specify WPA-PSK then things should be fine (i.e. not WPA2 and not mixed WPA/WPA2 mode).

The URL I mentioned above explains this in greater detail and how to telnet into the router to force it into WPA-only mode. However, that's an old thread and the latest firmware that you have should allow you to specify WPA-PSK from the dropdown list of wireless security options.

Good luck and let me know if it works!